]]>Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s most popular business accelerator program for startups, released data to show it’s not discriminating against women, Hispanic and black founders when choosing what to fund.

YC found that it funds a comparable percentage of diverse companies to the applications it receives. The numbers aren’t 100 percent bulletproof, of course, since YC didn’t disclose how it drew its random 5 percent sample to represent its application demographics.

However, the accelerator should be commended for making the effort to check its funding tendencies at all and share the data publicly. Almost all of Silicon Valley’s big tech companies have diversity problems, which we compared using visualizations in August.

11.8% of the founders who applied were women and around 3% percent of the founders were either Black or Hispanic.

Of the founders we funded in our most recent batch, 11.1% of the founders are women (about 23% of the startups have one or more female founders), 3.7% of the founders are Hispanic, and 4% of the founders are Black.

The accelerator acknowledged that although it doesn’t appear to discriminate in its funding choices, it’s problematic that so few female, black and hispanic founders apply to YC. “We will continue and strengthen our outreach efforts,” YC partner Michael Seibel said in the post.

]]>In its latest effort to improve its ad targeting, Twitter will start collecting information on what mobile apps its users have downloaded.

If you’re in the Pandora camp instead of the Spotify camp, Twitter will know. Harbor a penchant for celebrity gossip with both the TMZ and Perez Hilton app in your arsenal? Twitter will know. If you’re on a diet and you’re tracking your calories with an app, Twitter will know.

The company says it’s using the information to benefit you, by improving its recommendation engines on other Twitter accounts you should follow. As mentioned in the Twitter Analyst Call, an “instant timeline” for new users is also on its way. Information on what apps a person has downloaded could help Twitter build that.

The second purpose, one not mentioned by Twitter in its blog post, is the holy grail of free consumer web companies: Ad targeting. Twitter needs as much information as possible to woo marketers on mobile. A list of what apps someone follows is more fuel.

As Re/Code pointed out, Twitter is not the only one doing this. Other apps are able to ping iOS and Android systems to get similar information, and Facebook tracks users apps through the network of companies using its SDK.

Twitter’s app tracking is opt-out, meaning unless you tell Twitter not to track your apps in your phone’s settings, it will. Click here for the opt-out directions. The update reportedly rolls out today for iOS and later this week for Android.

]]>Facebook took its Audience Network out of beta Tuesday and introduced it to the wider public. Now, any app developer can serve themselves a scoop of advertising — and accompanying revenue — through Facebook’s ad network. Likewise, anyone who advertises on Facebook can also push their ads out through Facebook’s app network, using Facebook’s user data to target ads based on a person’s gender, age, location, and interests.

It’s the latest news in the social media giant’s ongoing advertising efforts, following closely on the heels of its relaunch of Atlas. That’s Facebook’s ad server that competes with Google’s DoubleClick, distributing banner ads to websites and mobile sites.

The Audience Network allows developers to integrate ads into their apps via an API. With the API, the Facebook-served ads will appear native to the app, with the same styling and coloring of the app itself. “The future of ads is all about showing you ads that are integral to the app experience,” Facebook’s head of mobile monetization Sriram Kirshnan told me. “If you look at the ads inside [Facebook] Newsfeed, they don’t interrupt you or annoy you, they look like they’re part of the newsfeed itself.”

Facebook famouslystruggledwith making money on mobile following its public offering, and now, it’s using the lessons it learned during that time to make its ad network as profitable as possible, for app developers, advertisers, and Facebook itself.

It’s clear at this point that Facebook’s future business growth isn’t tied to just the Facebook application. The company has watched Google and realized that the real money is to be made in advertising everywhere on the web. There are few companies that could compete with Google in this regard, but Facebook has the type of user data that might attract ad agencies to use it in conjunction with, or instead of, Google’s cookie-powered data.

Facebook has the lead with native mobile app advertising. Its expansion of its Audience Network solidifies that dominance. But Twitter will be trying to catch up. At its upcoming – and first ever — mobile developer conference, Twitter is expected to launch a holistic product for app developers that helps them track their app’s performance, log in users, and serve up ads.

]]>For some time now, businesses have faced many challenges when it comes to the infrastructure needs of consumer-facing applications. But today there are metrics that can help them justify and benchmark the success of their investments.

]]>Amid a perfect storm of market drivers and use cases like the BYOD phenomenon and the emergence of cloud technologies, this year we have seen enterprises overcome the inertia to start the adoption of virtual desktops.

]]>Apple’s iOS still dominates among app developers, but it may be losing its edge. According to a recent GigaOM Pro survey (subscription required), both iOS and Android use is growing, but app developers are adopting Android at a faster rate. The web-based study surveyed 352 app developers on everything from who they are to where they sell their apps to how much money they make.

It asked them which platforms they currently use and which they plan to develop on next year. The growth in the percentage of developers using Android to create mobile apps is nearly twice that of iOS; and it’s four times as fast (on Android vs iOS) for tablet apps.

]]>The mobile industry has changed radically in just a few years: We’ve had the smartphone revolution and the app revolution. And it was only three years ago that the tablet was written off as failed experiment. Now, it is testing the physical boundaries of the internet.

What’s next? Faster and cheaper mobile networks, an array of new devices to connect to those networks, disruptive payment models, and more captivating user interfaces. So which companies are likely to help power that new wave of innovation? Welcome to The Mobile 15.

These aren’t necessarily the most successful companies in the mobile world, though you could argue that a few of them might qualify for those lists as well. Rather, what we’re highlighting here is simply innovation: These are the companies, startups and giants alike, that are changing, or could potentially change, the mobile landscape in the most profound ways. We’ll be talking about this list — as well as many of broader themes and challenges in mobile– at Mobilize, our conference in San Francisco later this week.

The Mobile 15 includes some big brands, like Alcatel-Lucent and Samsung, but also some lesser-known names, like the printed memory company ThinFilm and crowdsourced traffic app developer Waze. Some of our picks may surprise you, like the inclusion of long-suffering Nokia. We know Nokia has hit a rough patch in recent years, but we think its attempts to radically reinvent itself with a new OS and new technologies are compelling — see more on our rationale below.

A word about our methodology: To create the list, we didn’t simply pick a bunch of names we liked and throw them into a spreadsheet. Our team — which included writers Katie Fehrenbacher, Kevin Tofel, Ryan Kim and Stacey Higginbotham– submitted dozens of candidates in categories ranging from app development to handset technologies to infrastructure vendors. We even included the Internet of Things — companies are turning everything from medical devices, energy-management systems and product packaging into small mobile computers.

We then graded every company on several different measures of innovation. Those with the highest total innovation scores earned a spot on our Mobile 15 list. Some of these companies, like Israeli startup Intucell, are working on one-time innovations, while others, like Apple, of course, have a longer track record of breakthroughs. What connects all the companies on our list is that they will have a big impact on the mobile industry.

]]>IBM‘s aggressive stance against the use of unsanctioned applications grabbed headlines a few months ago, but the trend toward “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) has put pressure on IT in all businesses, large and small. As a manager of cloud products at Symantec, I frequently work with chief information security officer (CISOs) who are sweating over whether to allow the use of these services and accept the very real risks of data leakage and sprawl, or follow IBM’s lead and prepare for battle against that stubborn executive hell-bent on accessing his data in the cloud.

Both scenarios are enough to give any CISO heartburn, but neither option is the right answer. IT needs to provide a sanctioned alternative that allows employees to be überproductive while still maintaining security and control. For IBM, this came in the form of MyMobileHub, a homegrown solution that hosts all data onsite. That’s great for IBM, but the rest of us would be better served by partnering with a trusted cloud vendor. Here are some critical criteria that will help you differentiate between BYOD-friendly and BYOD-adverse vendors.

1. If my data is stored in the cloud, who has access?

The inherent benefits of data storage in the cloud are obvious: virtually limitless storage, no required maintenance or upgrades, and little to no administration overhead is required. But how can businesses trust that their data is safe when it’s stored in third-party data centers? A universal set of requirements seems to have standardized around encryption, backup, audit logging and check-the-box certifications. However, IT should press vendors to explain how data is protected at all layers in the security stack. Will data or credentials be cached and stored in the clear to optimize product performance? Will the vendor provide and manage the encryption keys that give full access to that sensitive data? Are the right controls in place to block unauthorized access by employees at the vendor site? Visibility into data access practices will help differentiate between vendors when AES-256 encryption at rest and 256-bit SSL encryption in transit become the norm.

2. How do existing security controls, such as data loss prevention (DLP) and eDiscovery, apply to my data in the cloud?

Productivity apps should not be exempt from any security or compliance policies that keep your business data protected. This means that interoperability is key. Are the audit logs associated with the service exportable in a format that can plug into a downstream log management tool? How does the vendor’s platform comply with eDiscovery mechanisms, including search and legal holds? Can your existing DLP policies map to affect the actions your users take within the productivity app? When looking for a vendor, try to find services that compliment your current security posture rather than introduce new complexities.

3. How can I differentiate between business data and my employees’ personal data?

One of the major concerns with BYOD is identifying which data belongs to the user and which belongs to the business. The legal headaches that accompany an accidental wipe of personal data is enough to scare IT away from BYOD altogether. How do the vendors you’re evaluating approach this dilemma?

Although the risks aren’t trivial, a future where BYOD is fully embraced within your business may be near. The good news for IT is that vendors are aware of the challenges and are developing innovative technologies to help facilitate a more confident transition. 2011 was the year of mobile device management (MDM), and 2012 will focus on extending a new level of protection to the actual applications and data on all devices, whether personal or corporate-issued. Partnering with a trusted vendor will enable IT to focus on solving the issues that matter, rather than funding and allocating resources to an internal “Siri-for-business” initiative.

Anthony Kennada is Symantec’s senior manager of emerging cloud products. Prior to joining Symantec, Kennada worked at LiveOffice (now part of Symantec) and Box.net.

]]>The Wholesale Application Community may be defunct, but some hope of accomplishing WAC’s original mission – building a common set of mobile network APIs for developers – seems to remain. Other standards bodies are trying to pick up where WAC left off, and individual carriers are looking at private companies to do the work they couldn’t accomplish as a group.

Leap Wireless, which operates the Cricket Communications prepaid carrier, has tapped Aepona to provide it with a managed API platform. Belfast, U.K.,-based Aepona plays two roles. First, it simplifies carriers’ complex and proprietary network APIs for billing, location and presence and exposes them to developers in a much easier-to-use format. Second, it handles the nitty-gritty of developer recruitment, relations and support – tasks that are not exactly the carriers’ forte.

On the standards front, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) has grabbed the baton dropped by WAC and is developing its own network API framework that would allow HTML5 developers and device makers to dive into the hitherto murky depths of carriers’ core networks. ATIS, however, is a North American standards development group. Most U.S. and Canadian carriers are members, as are the big global handset and infrastructure ventures, so its recommendations don’t carry much weight over the oceans.

Herein lies the problem: while WAC’s mandate was truly global – its membership was comprised of 4 dozen operators from every part of the world – the efforts emerging to replace it are fragmented. And one of the biggest reasons (among many) developers don’t want to work with operators is the problem of fragmentation: signing separate deals with individual carriers and developing to each operator’s own technical standards and APIs.

WAC was a noble idea, but as Locaid CEO Rip Gerber wrote in a recent GigaOM contributed piece, operators are probably the most ill-equipped creatures to turn such a grand plan into reality. Ultimately WAC failed, Gerber said, for three reasons: carrier collectives move slowly — even when the stakes are high – building API’s simply isn’t in carriers’ DNA and because WAC ultimately had neither the mandate, nor the wherewithal, to bring those APIs to market.

Gerber’s answer is to hand the work over to API specialists like his own location interface company Locaid, Apigee or Aepona. These companies obviously are better equipped than any carrier consortium to do the technical work as well as deal with the finicky developer community But the problem of fragmentation remains. Half a dozen API companies means half a dozen platforms with which developers must deal.

Kudos to ATIS for taking another crack at seemingly insurmountable problem, but it’s just one standards development body of dozens worldwide. The GSMA is also taking up WAC’s slack working with Apigee as part of its One API initiative. Canadian carriers are working with Apigee’s competitor Aepona. If all of this standards work results in a dozen different API frameworks, we don’t really have a standard at all.

I agree with Gerber that half a dozen simplified API frameworks are better than 200 complex ones. And some developers would be able to work within those divisions. In the unlikely event U.S. carriers adopted a unified API framework, it could be attractive to any developer building apps primarily for the domestic market.

Even if a carrier like Leap finds itself on an API island, it can still put those interfaces to work. Cricket has enjoyed quite a bit of success with its white-label Muve music subscription service. Using Aepona’s simplified APIs, it would be much easier for a Leap to recruit new content suppliers and launch their services.

But those kind of tight-knit carrier-developer relationships are a rarity and the tiniest fraction of the overall applications market. What carriers dream of doing is becoming part of the global app distribution chain, taking a cut of every app billed to their customers or charging fees to access their other APIs. Developers simply aren’t going to play that carrier game if they can get much wider exposure – and less headache – working with Apple, Google and Microsoft. Without some semblance of a common API, that carrier dream is never going to happen.